I moved to Chicago in the summer of 2012 without realizing that’s what was happening. I was simply visiting a guy I liked, not imagining that I’d postpone my flight home to Paris twice and that we’d get married eight weeks later. This is to say that my first walks around town were tourist walks, … Read more
I turned west off Western avenue beneath the railroad bridge that spans 26th Street, drove a few blocks, and then turned right past the Lawndale Gardens row house projects, where shirtless guys were hooping not far from Washtenaw Park. Washtenaw Park is a city playground — there aren’t many trees. Nor is there a garden in Lawndale … Read more
I was 30 pages into Denis Johnson’s first novel, Angels, when I discovered that one of the scenes takes place in the very same neighborhood, on the very same block, where I currently live, near the corner of Clark and Wilson in Uptown. It is here that a drifter named Bill Houston pulls out a … Read more
I’d come to 75th Street beset by a craving for caramel cake, my ultimate sugar fix, a cherished token of the South I left behind three years ago. I found my quarry at Brown Sugar Bakery, where they call it “carmel cake”: two tall yellow layers, generously iced. The woman behind the counter cut a … Read more
the block a loose square packed like sardines. loose screw people keep up the pace. people know a streetlight’s bedtime like a back hand road. people know parole don’t keep the cartel sleep. moms say we’re sick for picking a block with such a back story. the building shot up. last year before demolition. the … Read more
The greater Midwest is bleeding college graduates (and Democratic voters) into Chicago. Would it sway the midterms if they packed up and went home?
For some, there’s no final resting place like home.
The innovators at these five upstart nonprofits are bringing out-of-the-box thinking to tough problems. And they’re getting results.
From left: Amanda Martinsen, Lauren Schrero, and Adam Levy The Problem:Shunning and social isolation of kids with disabilities The Fix:A school curriculum that connects disabled kids with their classmates and teaches empathy The Backstory:The situation was difficult enough for Lauren Schrero and her husband, Adam Levy, after their daughter, Nora, who was born prematurely, suffered … Read more
Above: Liz Dozier The Problem:The do-more-with-less financial reality at many local nonprofits The Fix:A startup-style incubator fund The Backstory:There’s one word that Liz Dozier wants to banish from descriptions of the nonprofit she started in 2016: charity. “What charities do is set this really unhealthy system of how you’re giving people fish,” Dozier says, alluding … Read more
